The new year began with much of the same disheartening economic news as the previous year’s end, including escalating unemployment rates, subdued retail sales, corporate profit warnings and unrelenting liquidity concerns in the banking sector. For the first two trading weeks of the year, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and NASDAQ declined 8.3%, […]
GE Purchases Whatman The acquisition (see IBO 2/15/08) was evidence that GE Life Science is still intent on growing its business. The $713 million purchase was also a testament to the importance of sample preparation products to life science suppliers. Agilent Expands Materials Science Business Four acquisitions this year (see IBO 3/15/08, 6/30/08, 7/15/08) added […]
Hillsboro, OR 1/5/09—Electron microscopy firm FEI has announced that its gross bookings for the fourth quarter of 2008 totaled more than $170 million, exceeding its October 2008 forecast of $150 million. FEI noted that the gross bookings will be reduced by 5%–8% due to the normal quarterly revaluation of backlog. “Life Science bookings were paced […]
Milford, MA 1/12/09—Waters has announced preliminary sales for the fourth quarter of 2008 of approximately $418 million. This figure is within the range of the company’s revised guidance announced last month of $410-$420 million (see IBO 12/15/08). Waters specifically attributed the reduced sales volume to unfavorable currency translations, slower spending by chemical manufacturers, continued weak […]
Growth in 2008 for the separations market was nearly two percentage points lower than the original forecast estimates (see IBO 1/15/08) due, in part, to the weakened third and fourth quarters marked by the global financial crisis. In 2008, the separations market accounted for $6.6 billion in revenues and grew 6.6% over 2007. For 2009, […]
Financial Crisis As with firms worldwide, analytical and life science instrument companies found themselves at the mercy of the credit crisis, failing stock markets and lower industrial demand at year-end. Some of the strongest markets for instrumentation in recent years—the petrochemical, metals and chemical industries—abruptly slowed operations in late 2008 and announced cost cuts for […]
IBO has been publishing its annual instrument industry forecast issue since 1993, but never have we been confronted with the level of uncertainty that hangs over the industry at this time. Normally, economic ups and downs in various regions of the world do not have that much of an impact on the industry because of […]
San Diego, CA 1/9/09 and 1/14/09; Marlborough, MA 1/12/09—Sequenom has announced that it will commence its exchange offer for publicly-held EXACT Sciences, a provider of a noninvasive stool-based DNA screening technology for colorectal cancer, despite a unanimously rejection of its offer by EXACT’s Board. On January 9, Sequenom made public its $41 million all-stock offer […]
London, UK 12/8/08—Scientific Digital Imaging has listed on the London Stock Exchanges’s Alternative Investment Market (see IBO 11/30/08). The company issued 16,663,842 shares. The opening price was 12.5 pence ($0.18) per share, and the closing price at month end was at 11.75 pence ($0.17) per share. The company’s market capitalization is £2 million ($3 million).
This year will be a period most investors would soon rather forget, as virtually all international stock markets suffered significant losses due to the current global economic crisis. For the year, the Dow Jones World Index fell approximately 43%, despite international efforts to lower interest rates and increase spending through massive bailout plans. The credit […]
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IBO (Instrument Business Outlook) is a twice-monthly newsletter aimed at providing decision-makers with the latest and most complete information available on the life science and analytical instrument industry, and lab product markets. IBO delivers the latest curated industry news, information and trends, as well as SDi data and analysis to deliver the maximum in industry insight with a minimum time investment for executives and investors.
